Master File is not an entirely reliable reference, being that it isn't an official setting reference and contradicts the official setting fairly frequently. The VF-31 Master File is so badly written it's not worth the paper it's printed on.

Macross Chronicle, on the other hand, IS an official setting reference and identifies the YF-29B as a improved version of the YF-29, not simply a build-under-license version.

Maybe the YF-29 testing on Eden (from Master File VF-25) is actually a YF-29B, it is easier to get YF-29B from Earth than from Frontier.

Given that the YF-29B Percival didn't exist yet in the real world when the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah book was written, I'd assume that New Edwards Test Flight Center is using a YF-29 in a stock (non-Special Forces) Durandal configuration in Master File.

5-Gen VF is a term to describe YF-24 Family in Master File VF-31. YF-29 & YF-30 are 6-Gen VF, specialized Fold Quartz-equipped VF that meets some of the insane requirements of "Super VF Initiative", the Anti-Vajra VF that UNS wanted so badly after the Tragedy of 117th Fleet.

Officially, all YF-24 derivatives are 5th Generation VFs... including the YF-29, YF-29B, YF-30, and VF-31.

Also, as the Vajra were the primary driving factor that launched the YF-24 program in 2040, all 5th Gen VFs are technically "anti-Vajra" VFs.

The Macross Frontier branches of Shinsei Industry and LAI developed the YF-25 and YF-29 concurrently and in parallel with the Macross Galaxy fleet's YF-27 program. The YF-29 was simply too expensive to for mass production, despite its over-the-top performance, so the YF-25 program was advanced as the candidate to replace the VF-171 in the Macross Frontier fleet's forces and became the VF-25.

The YF-30 is a merger of specs from the YF-24 and YF-29, and the VF-31 is simply an economized YF-30.

Yet somehow NUNS didn't procure VF-25 or VF-27 to replace the aging VF-171, or at very least, VF-25 was not deployed in very large numbers among NUNS regular force. NUNS wanted an even newer VF! Then NUNS requested Shinsei to redesign YF-30 and put it into mass production, as NUNS thought that there was no time for develop a VF from scratch. The result is VF-31 Kairos & VF-31 Siegfried. This time, NUNS planned to deploy them across the galaxy.

You're operating with a rather fundamental misunderstanding of how the New UN Government and the New UN Forces work.

They're not monolithic, centralized entities and hadn't been for decades before Macross Frontier and Macross Delta. Each fleet is essentially an independent state in space, to such an extent that some even have their own unique currencies. (This decentralization is the thing Latence and its splinter group FASCES are so upset about, and trying to reverse.)

Kawamori has likened the New UN Government to the modern European Union, with its military laid out a lot like how the EU parliament wants to do with Europe's armies. Each fleet and planet is an autonomous government and member state in the supranational New UN Government. The New UN Government has a federal military that it maintains (the federal New UN Forces), while each member state also maintains a local military that operates under the New UN Forces banner and functions as a mixture of national guard, citizen's militia, and reserve formation for the federal forces. Because they're autonomous, each of those fleets and planets has the freedom to decide how to arm its own local defense forces. Most governments have historically gone for the same fighter (an export model of same from the 4th Generation on) as what the federal forces are using, while some have bucked the trend and gone for other options.

We saw this for the first time all the way back in Macross 7. The colonial government of the Varauta system - established by the 13th Large-Scale Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet - had opted to pass on adopting the Shinsei Industry VF-11 in favor of using General Galaxy's VF-14 Vampire. Once those fools released the Protodeviln by mistake, those VF-14s became the basis for the Fz-109. Per Macross Chronicle some fleets decided to opt out of manned fighters altogether and adopted the Ghost as their main fighter, while at least one (Macross-29) went to a philosophy of total pacifism and abandoned its military altogether.

The 4th Generation's VF-171 Nightmare Plus was similarly widely used, though that generation started the arms export restrictions that led to local governments developing their own new VFs. Isamu's little stunt breaking through Earth's defenses gave the New UN Gov't cold feed about exporting even reduced-capability models of the VF-19, which combined with other factors like control problems to kill its widespread adoption in favor of the VF-171. Some governments, however, opted for alternatives like unmanned fighters or rival designs, like the General Galaxy Sv-154 Svard that Windermere IV's government purchased.

The 5th Generation has seen a great diversification as a result of the government and military becoming so decentralized and the limitations on performance in export variants of the federal forces' main fighter. At no point were the fighters developed by the emigrant fleets and planets intended to be the main fighter for every member state throughout the galaxy. By the time development started on them, the federal forces had already picked their 5th Generation fighter. They designed the new fighters for their own use, and to sell to their allies who hadn't bought the export version of the federal main fighter.

Contradicts canon an awful lot, to the extent that it's worse than fan-fiction in a lot of respects.

Its version does, however, make a good deal of reference to the Macross Frontier fleet government selling the VF-25 to other local governments as a replacement for the VF-171. Macross Olympia, of course, had dibs since they were one of the Project Triangler codevelopment partners who were all supposed to get fullspec versions of it (they even supplied some of the parts for the Macross Frontier fleet's test models.)

You're operating with a rather fundamental misunderstanding of how the New UN Government and the New UN Forces work.

They're not monolithic, centralized entities and hadn't been for decades before Macross Frontier and Macross Delta. Each fleet is essentially an independent state in space, to such an extent that some even have their own unique currencies. (This decentralization is the thing Latence and its splinter group FASCES are so upset about, and trying to reverse.)

Kawamori has likened the New UN Government to the modern European Union, with its military laid out a lot like how the EU parliament wants to do with Europe's armies. Each fleet and planet is an autonomous government and member state in the supranational New UN Government. The New UN Government has a federal military that it maintains (the federal New UN Forces), while each member state also maintains a local military that operates under the New UN Forces banner and functions as a mixture of national guard, citizen's militia, and reserve formation for the federal forces. Because they're autonomous, each of those fleets and planets has the freedom to decide how to arm its own local defense forces. Most governments have historically gone for the same fighter (an export model of same from the 4th Generation on) as what the federal forces are using, while some have bucked the trend and gone for other options.

We saw this for the first time all the way back in Macross 7. The colonial government of the Varauta system - established by the 13th Large-Scale Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet - had opted to pass on adopting the Shinsei Industry VF-11 in favor of using General Galaxy's VF-14 Vampire. Once those fools released the Protodeviln by mistake, those VF-14s became the basis for the Fz-109. Per Macross Chronicle some fleets decided to opt out of manned fighters altogether and adopted the Ghost as their main fighter, while at least one (Macross-29) went to a philosophy of total pacifism and abandoned its military altogether.

The 4th Generation's VF-171 Nightmare Plus was similarly widely used, though that generation started the arms export restrictions that led to local governments developing their own new VFs. Isamu's little stunt breaking through Earth's defenses gave the New UN Gov't cold feed about exporting even reduced-capability models of the VF-19, which combined with other factors like control problems to kill its widespread adoption in favor of the VF-171. Some governments, however, opted for alternatives like unmanned fighters or rival designs, like the General Galaxy Sv-154 Svard that Windermere IV's government purchased.

The 5th Generation has seen a great diversification as a result of the government and military becoming so decentralized and the limitations on performance in export variants of the federal forces' main fighter. At no point were the fighters developed by the emigrant fleets and planets intended to be the main fighter for every member state throughout the galaxy. By the time development started on them, the federal forces had already picked their 5th Generation fighter. They designed the new fighters for their own use, and to sell to their allies who hadn't bought the export version of the federal main fighter.

Maybe I misunderstand the entire thing because "Earth Mainland" or "Main Planet" are often mentioned in novels (The Ride, 30 and Delta) and UN is portrayed as like a centralized government, or at least a federal one more than a supranational organization, especially in novels, even in NUN era.
But why NUNS didn't just continue the development of YF-24 in late 2040s? If the threat of Vajra was that great, NUNS might develop its own 5-Gen VF, in case that Project Triangular was behind schedule or facing great obstacles and its 5-Gen VFs were not avaliable in time. Or they simply put YF-24 in production.

The background mentioned in TOMYTEC VF-31A model manual is like NUNS did nothing (still cleaning up the mess of 2nd Space War?), paying no attention to the development of 5-Gen VFs made by member fleets. When VF-25 and VF-27 rolled out, they woke up suddenly and cried for new toys...

Contradicts canon an awful lot, to the extent that it's worse than fan-fiction in a lot of respects.

Its version does, however, make a good deal of reference to the Macross Frontier fleet government selling the VF-25 to other local governments as a replacement for the VF-171. Macross Olympia, of course, had dibs since they were one of the Project Triangler codevelopment partners who were all supposed to get fullspec versions of it (they even supplied some of the parts for the Macross Frontier fleet's test models.)

YF-24 is continued in the form of VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30 and VF-31, it was a design that was sent to various fleets for licensing which the fleets themselves made, its why the VF-25 and VF-27 differ despite being from the same family line. These top of the line fighters are very expensive, and as stated above as well as previous pages, different fleets have different circumstances for fighters. There is no 1 size fit all unless its a cheap mass produced unit that has been in use for many years and even then things differ depending on what their preference is.

And the thing about UN Spacey/NUNS being a centralized government? Macross 7 has shown us that the central HQ on Earth does not care what happens to exploration fleets/fleets in other galaxies, they leave them to fend for themselves. The Galaxy Fleet was very shady and committing all sorts of acts, but no one kept a check on them. Delta has shown us the same thing again with what is happening in the galaxy with HQ doing nothing to actually help.

And the thing about UN Spacey/NUNS being a centralized government? Macross 7 has shown us that the central HQ on Earth does not care what happens to exploration fleets/fleets in other galaxies, they leave them to fend for themselves. The Galaxy Fleet was very shady and committing all sorts of acts, but no one kept a check on them. Delta has shown us the same thing again with what is happening in the galaxy with HQ doing nothing to actually help.

give it some time and Macross' Earth will end up like LOGH's Earth. just a thing of the past at worst and an unusual tourist spot at best. that said, it's no wonder Galaxy Fleet and the Wind Kingdom go to create their own VFs.

it is a good thing that there's no equivalent of Ace combat infinity's Advanced Automated Aviation Plant.

YF-24 is continued in the form of VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30 and VF-31, it was a design that was sent to various fleets for licensing which the fleets themselves made, its why the VF-25 and VF-27 differ despite being from the same family line. These top of the line fighters are very expensive, and as stated above as well as previous pages, different fleets have different circumstances for fighters. There is no 1 size fit all unless its a cheap mass produced unit that has been in use for many years and even then things differ depending on what their preference is.

Different branches or planets or fleets have their unique requirements, that's normal, but the VF-31 model manual, one of the few canon sources available now, shows that NUNS still wants a one-size-fit-all solution...http://www.1999.co.jp/itbig38/10384638k.jpg

And one question remains.
After NUNS knew Frontier and Galaxy developed and manufactured their own 5-Gen VFs, NUN government worried that separatist movement may erupt in Colony Fleets. Then they ordered NUNS to adopt an new VF, replacing VF-171. I think the NUNS in the VF-31A model manual is NUN Federal Force said by Kaiba.
Other than real world reasons, why did they choose to redesign YF-30 into VF-31, instead of putting YF-24 into mass production? NUNS Federal Force already knew that they had no time to develop a totally new VF, yet redesigning YF-30 could take more time than producing YF-24 as VF-24.
Was YF-24 unable to fulfill NUNS Federal Force requirements? Or simply the release of Delta in real world changed everything, and the writer who wrote the background of VF-31A forgot the development history of YF-24 family?

It is because Alto said VF-25 were fielded by both SMS and NUNS (NUNS Special Forces in novel) in Macross 30, that means Kawamori might intended to use VF-25 as next-gen main VF before Delta released.
Yet, It is impossible to tell the NUNS mentioned above is Frontier Forces or NUNS outside Frontier.

And the thing about UN Spacey/NUNS being a centralized government? Macross 7 has shown us that the central HQ on Earth does not care what happens to exploration fleets/fleets in other galaxies, they leave them to fend for themselves. The Galaxy Fleet was very shady and committing all sorts of acts, but no one kept a check on them. Delta has shown us the same thing again with what is happening in the galaxy with HQ doing nothing to actually help.

UN on screens and novels are quite different.

The UN and NUN on screen did little things or made the situation even worse, except in F Movies, if not counting they fired on Vajra queen.
Their counterpart on novels? In 2040s, they were out-of-touch and bossy Earth supremacists and UN sounded like a federal state with a stagnate government plagued by fold faults, rather than EU.

Below are what they did as described in F TV version Novel.
Agricultural planets were exploited by Earth, forcing the colonists to grow the designated crops for Earth, buying their crops low, selling food and equipment to them high.
Explorers and pioneers lost their ownership of the planet or sector to central bureaucrats or megacorps, because some pencil pushers in UN signed a document to transfer the rights, without the consent of the explorers.
Colonial governments were often unable response to ongoing events effectively, since colonial governments had to obtain permission from central to make many decisions, including the deployment of UNS forces, as bounded by the UN Charter. In 30 novel version, Mylene said City 7 was plagued by this issue deeply, the deployment issue was a major cause of the disputes between her parents.

In late 2050s, NUNS sent VF-X to investigate the Cyber-Noble Conspiracy at least, but Ractence or Earth supremacists still had certain influence in NUN, even though they were regarded as outdated centralist by colonists, as stated in 30 novel version.
Also, in F TV version Novel, Cathy revealed that Mishima was an official appointed by NUN HQ when he was going to be arrested near the end. I am not familiar with politics, can EU appoint one of their officials into the government of a member state, as President's or Prime Minister's aide?

Since Macross 7, we've seen the top of the line fighters used by special forces units in UN Spacey/NUNS, they get the big and expensive toys. Frontier and Delta the private firms are using the VF-25/VF-31 because they helped develop and pay for them. Even VF-X its about special forces, also want to point out they were ordered by UN Spacey, not NUNS then. Macross 30 the antagonists are using VF-27s and YF-29, also NUNS special forces.

I don't know what you're talking about with the YF-24 not being continued... the VF-31 is related to it via YF-30 which took the best elements from the various other YF-24 family. I don't recall the YF-24 ever being a option to replace the VF-171 as the main fighter... Not even the VF-25 either. These are too expensive for NUNS to mass produce in large numbers...

Maybe I misunderstand the entire thing because "Earth Mainland" or "Main Planet" are often mentioned in novels (The Ride, 30 and Delta) and UN is portrayed as like a centralized government, or at least a federal one more than a supranational organization, especially in novels, even in NUN era.

Earth is still an important planet in the 2050's and 2060's... it just isn't the center of the galaxy anymore.

Earth is still the de facto capital of the New Unification Government. Macross City in Alaska is pulling triple duty as the planetary capital, the solar system capital, and the Seat of the New UN Parliament. That lucky municipality is also home to the New Unified Forces Command (the supreme headquarters of the New UN Forces, which you'd recognize as the decommissioned SDF-1 Macross). It's also the wealthiest and most technologically advanced world in the New UN Government, and maintains the largest, best-equipped New UN Forces garrison as well as equipping the federal New UN Forces.

Earth is hands down the "biggest stick", it's just no longer micromanaging the rest of the galaxy because the logistical problems inherent in fold travel and fold communications made it more practical to devolve more and more authority to the individual member "states". (It's rather difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of a growing colony when it takes weeks to get a communique there and months to travel there one-way.)

But why NUNS didn't just continue the development of YF-24 in late 2040s? If the threat of Vajra was that great, NUNS might develop its own 5-Gen VF, in case that Project Triangular was behind schedule or facing great obstacles and its 5-Gen VFs were not avaliable in time. Or they simply put YF-24 in production.

They did... sort of. It's a complicated story.

Shinsei and General Galaxy's joint YF-24 development program was something initiated and bankrolled by the New UN Government and federal New UN Forces. It was suspended for a time when it turned out the all-important Inertia Store Converter technology simply wasn't mature enough to allow the program to go forward. Once stable ISC systems were available, Shinsei Industry relaunched the YF-24 program as their YF-24 "Evolution" and in 2057 they demonstrated the final prototypes to the federal New UN Forces in an ambitious simulated combat scenario at the New Edwards Test Flight Center on Eden with Major Isamu A. Dyson of the New UN Forces reserve serving as test pilot. The YF-24 Evolution demonstrator beat, in the simulated dogfight, a mixed squadron of 12 4th Generation VFs (VF-19s and VF-22s) and 6 QF-4000 Ghost UCAVs, and then demonstrated a simulated pinpoint reaction warhead attack on the bridge of a stealth carrier using a fold booster. The New UN Forces were understandably impressed, and the Shinsei's YF-24 Evolution went into mass production as the VF-24A and became the next main fighter of the Earth forces and Federal New UN Forces. (Remarks in the YF-29's writeups in Macross Chronicle and in Great Mechanics suggest the YF-29 is the only 5th Gen VF to rival the VF-24 for performance.)

Once the federal New UN Forces had settled on the VF-24 as their next main fighter, a censored version of the YF-24 specification was shared to the emigrant fleets and planets to become the basis for their locally developed new VFs or export versions of the VF-24. It was already a completed aircraft headed into mass production before development of the YF-25, YF-27, and YF-30 began.

The background mentioned in TOMYTEC VF-31A model manual is like NUNS did nothing (still cleaning up the mess of 2nd Space War?), paying no attention to the development of 5-Gen VFs made by member fleets. When VF-25 and VF-27 rolled out, they woke up suddenly and cried for new toys...

The federal New UN Forces have a lot on their plate, and generally don't intervene in inter-colony disputes (as Mirage mentions in the Macross Delta series).

Safe bet is the TOMYTEC model is referring to the local defense forces the worlds of the Brisingr Alliance operate under the banner of the New UN Forces. They're very much late to the 5th Generation party, as their locally-developed Surya Aerospace VF-31 Kairos won't be ready for adoption by their New UN Forces garrisons until 2069 or 2070 (per Kawamori's interview in Great Mechanics G's Spring 2016 issue), a full decade after most of the rest of the galaxy got their 5th Gen VFs into production.

Those poor buggers in the Brisingr Alliance NUNS were still flying Block II VF-171s in 2067, after even their impoverished former member Windermere IV had broomed its 4th Gen Sv-154 Svards in favor of a 5th Gen fighter from Epsilon Foundation's subsidiary Dian Cécht (the Sv-262 Draken III).

There is no 1 size fit all unless its a cheap mass produced unit that has been in use for many years and even then things differ depending on what their preference is.

Yep... that's your VF-171 Nightmare Plus, a comparatively inexpensive mass production unit that exists in dozens of different regional variations. Supposedly it's only three times as expensive as the non-variable unmanned QF-4000, and it's a masterpiece of operational versatility that can function as everything from space dogfighter down the line to reconnaissance plane, bomber, and spyplane.

The Galaxy Fleet was very shady and committing all sorts of acts, but no one kept a check on them. Delta has shown us the same thing again with what is happening in the galaxy with HQ doing nothing to actually help.

To be fair, it's noted in the Macross Delta series that the situation with Windermere IV made it very difficult, politically, for the federal New UN Forces to intervene. It was technically an inter-colony tiff, a kind of conflict that they don't intervene in unless it gets WAY out of hand like if someone dusts off WMDs and tries to use 'em. (If they'd been aware of what Windermere IV was up to, they'd probably have sent a decent-sized reinforcement contingent, but Xaos's Lady M tried to keep it all quiet until it was too late.)

give it some time and Macross' Earth will end up like LOGH's Earth. just a thing of the past at worst and an unusual tourist spot at best. that said, it's no wonder Galaxy Fleet and the Wind Kingdom go to create their own VFs.

Unless someone steps up their game and manages to eclipse the technological might of Earth, that's not likely. They've got TWENTY factory satellites in that system, making them the single biggest industrial power in the galaxy outside of the Zentradi Army's logistical chain.

That said, Windermere IV's Kingdom of the Wind didn't develop its own VFs. Their economy is monstrously underdeveloped and still largely agricultural since New UN Government arms export laws prohibited them from exploiting the planet's other major resource: the metric ZOINKS-ton of fold quartz the Protoculture left sitting around on their planet. (This isn't biting just them in the arse though, it's a galaxy-wide restriction meant to prevent the proliferation of dimensional warheads.) Their VFs were purchased from the human-run defense contractors of the galaxy. They were initially buying from a specialist "brand" that was a pet project of one of General Galaxy's cofounders, the General Galaxy SV Works. The SV Works were sold off and became part of an Epsilon Foundation subsidiary named Dian Cécht and became the Dian Cécht SV Works, who developed the Sv-262 Draken III. Their warships are also purchased from Epsilon Foundation subsidiaries, and appear to be derivatives of General Galaxy designs.

it is a good thing that there's no equivalent of Ace combat infinity's Advanced Automated Aviation Plant.

... there is. The "Automated Weapons Development and Production" stations, AKA Factory Satellites, that the New UN Government has been appropriating from the Zentradi Army for decades. Once retrofitted, a factory satellite can build practically anything. The one they capture in the original SDF Macross TV series is the Sol system's principal shipyard and responsible for building the vast majority of the emigrant ships in the setting. That's how they've managed to launch 100+ short-range emigrant fleets and over 60 long-range ones in just four decades... and that's just ONE of them. Earth has twenty. 3rd Gen and later emigrant fleets are equipped with what you'd call a crude copy of the factory satellite's technology either in the form of stand-alone factory ships like the Macross-7 fleet's Three Star-class (a terrible pun on the Mitsubishi group's name) or built into the habitat ships like Macross Frontier had.

It's known that several other New UN Government worlds also possess factory satellites. Eden is known to possess a factory satellite originally designed to produce Queadluun-Rau battle suits, which is where their General Galaxy office developed and built both the YF-21 and the Queadluun-Rhea battle suit first seen in Macross Frontier. The remote colony world of Uroboros from Macross 30 also has one, and it's actually used exactly the same way in-game as Ace Combat Infinity's advanced automated aviation plant, building new VFs once you acquire/unlock the blueprints for them and provide the money/parts to build them.

After NUNS knew Frontier and Galaxy developed and manufactured their own 5-Gen VFs, NUN government worried that separatist movement may erupt in Colony Fleets. Then they ordered NUNS to adopt an new VF, replacing VF-171. I think the NUNS in the VF-31A model manual is NUN Federal Force said by Kaiba.

You've got that backwards.

The New UN Government and federal New UN Forces were worried about the rise in separatist movements as early as Macross Plus. The YF-19 and YF-21 were developed, in part, to suppress such movements through pinpoint decapitation strikes on their headquarters to avoid mass bloodshed. (Col. Millard Johnson explains this when he introduces Isamu to the program in the OVA's first episode.) This was also one of the main reasons the New UN Government opted NOT to export full-spec VF-19s and VF-22s to emigrant fleets and mandated that performance limits be imposed on locally-built VF-19s and VF-22s in those fleets. They didn't want fighters that could potentially break through Earth's defenses in a position where they could fall into the hands of anti-government forces. That's why the emigrant fleet VF-19s are mostly what are called "monkey models"... reduced-capability export versions like the VF-19P from Macross Dynamite 7 or the VF-19EF from Macross the Ride.

The federal New UN Forces had already selected their 5th Generation main VF (the VF-24) before emigrant fleets ever even received the YF-24 Evolution specs they used as the basis for their own original VFs.

The VF-31 is about the last fighter you'd want to adopt if you were looking to be tops in the 5th Generation. Its performance is worse than any other 5th Generation VF to date. The Brisingr Alliance developed it as a way of stimulating their own economy, and it's correspondingly cheap because their member works cannot afford to have an expensive super-high performance VF. Even the customized VF-31s that Xaos uses as the "Siegfried" type are only BARELY better than the VF-25, and the customization is so expensive that Xaos is only able to field a few of them.

Other than real world reasons, why did they choose to redesign YF-30 into VF-31, instead of putting YF-24 into mass production? NUNS Federal Force already knew that they had no time to develop a totally new VF, yet redesigning YF-30 could take more time than producing YF-24 as VF-24.
Was YF-24 unable to fulfill NUNS Federal Force requirements? Or simply the release of Delta in real world changed everything, and the writer who wrote the background of VF-31A forgot the development history of YF-24 family?

The decision to develop the YF-30 Chronos into the VF-31 Kairos had nothing to do with the federal New UN Forces... it was a local decision made by the Brisingr Alliance member worlds. The obvious reason is it's an economic stimulus to develop their own fighter instead of purchasing one from an ally. Japan has done the same thing in the real world: the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's Mitsubishi F-2 is a derivative of the General Dynamics F-16 Falcon used by the USAF.

In the YF-30's case, I would assume that the Brisingr Alliance found building locally more attractive and the YF-30 design was probably too expensive to mass produce even in a build-under-license environment.

The YF-24 had already been approved for production as the VF-24 by the federal New UN Forces ten years before the events of Macross Delta (see above).

It is because Alto said VF-25 were fielded by both SMS and NUNS (NUNS Special Forces in novel) in Macross 30, that means Kawamori might intended to use VF-25 as next-gen main VF before Delta released.
Yet, It is impossible to tell the NUNS mentioned above is Frontier Forces or NUNS outside Frontier.

That's actually explained quite clearly in many different sources.

The Shinsei/LAI VF-25 Messiah was developed in partnership with the Macross Frontier fleet arsenal as the next main fighter of the Macross Frontier New UN Forces, with the possibility of export sales to the fleet's closest strategic, political, and economic partners. It was not developed as a candidate to be the federal New UN Forces' next main fighter, as they had already chosen their next main fighter in 2057.

Not really. They're actually pretty much identical, just the novelizations and spinoff light novels do a lot more continuity-related stuff, trying to tie all the different stories together more tightly whereas the TV anime tries to minimize references to other stories to stay accessible to new viewers.

Most of what you listed is also true in the shows... it's just not harped on as much in there, since it'd distract from the story they're trying to tell.

The first point on your list is literally the reason Windermere IV went to war with the New UN Government in 2060 and ultimately seceded from it. The New UN Government was monopolizing the harvesting of fold quartz on their world under the arms export restrictions, and their isolation made it difficult to grow their economy otherwise. This is elaborated on more in Macross Delta: the Black-Winged White Knight.

The second point is tangentially touched-on in Macross Frontier, though it underpins most of the plot there. Both fleets featured in the series are sponsored by corporations, though Macross Galaxy is officially an independent wholly-owned subsidiary of General Galaxy and governed as a corporation (the colonists in the fleet are employees), while Macross Frontier has a democratic parliamentary government that is under the nominal control of the fleet's financial backer Bilra Transport Co., which financed the fleet to go find fold quartz for improving its business position and even provided part of the fleet's defense forces through its subsidiary Strategic Military Services (SMS). Even the 117th Research Fleet was operated using funding from a megacorporation... the Critical Path Corporation, whose CEO was a bad guy in Macross VF-X2.

Your third point is not only a major plot point in several Macross 7 episodes, it's also referenced quite explicitly in Macross Frontier AND Macross Delta: the Black-Winged White Knight. Windermere IV wasn't happy about having to send its defense forces (the Aerial Knights) to aid one of its neighbors in a battle with a rogue Zentradi fleet because a "request" came down from New UN Forces staff HQ. It's not usually depicted as a problem, though... most emigrant fleets have sufficient firepower to deal with most threats on their own, though they do sometimes grumble when they have to commit their forces to help their neighbors out. City-7's problem was kind of a unique situation, since they had a hard time selling the idea of large-scale reinforcement to the military brass when they were already a large (for the time) fleet with higher-than-average firepower.

(Leon Mishima was appointed to oversee the Frontier fleet's NUNS by NUNS Staff HQ. It technically made him a member of President Glass's cabinet. It was President Glass, however, who was stupid enough that he'd made Mishima part of the actual governmental chain of command and opened the way for Mishima to assassinate him and take over.)

Frontier and Delta the private firms are using the VF-25/VF-31 because they helped develop and pay for them.

's actually more a matter of the local New UN Forces having contracted their services to test them in combat conditions because if a mercenary snuffs it it's legally an accidental death rather than a combat death, so it's less paperwork for the military. Ozma explains this to Alto early in Macross Frontier when he's trying to make sure Alto knows what he's getting into when he announces he wants to join SMS.

SMS and Xaos were both basically supplying legally-expendable test pilots for the final phase of testing on the new VFs before the military would formally adopt them. They didn't really have a role in their development.

Even VF-X its about special forces, also want to point out they were ordered by UN Spacey, not NUNS then.

They actually should've been... Kawamori admitted in an interview that the reason it hasn't been the New UN Government and New UN Spacy all along is because they totally forgot that they started using "New" in the post-timeskip episodes of the original series.

So, technically, it's been the New UN Government and New UN Forces since about 2011.

I don't know what you're talking about with the YF-24 not being continued... the VF-31 is related to it via YF-30 which took the best elements from the various other YF-24 family. I don't recall the YF-24 ever being a option to replace the VF-171 as the main fighter... Not even the VF-25 either. These are too expensive for NUNS to mass produce in large numbers...

It's only mentioned in official publications, but the VF-24 WAS adopted as next main fighter for the federal New UN Forces in 2057, before the specs for the YF-24 Evolution were shared to the emigrant fleets.

The VF-25 was a local development based on it, but appears to have done a brisk trade in export sales once it was formally adopted by the Macross Frontier NUNS since Sephira and a few other planets are using 'em.

Brisingr's just a broke-ass globular cluster so far out in the space boonies you'll hear banjos on the fold jump there... so they have to make do with their cheap YF-30 derivative, the VF-31 Kairos.

As usual, thanks to Kaiba for the info, I didn't know that about the YF-24 being a possible next gen main fighter cause its development history is kind of tricky from what I read and that it spawned a number of units.

Wow, that is fascinating. It also kind of makes a decent amount of sense that the later-developed YF-24-based models are locally-developed variants based on a pre-existing fighter in the Federal arsenal.
In real-world terms, as I understand it, aircraft like the VF-25, VF-31, etc...basically are equivalent to the JASDF's Mitsubishi F-2 - locally-developed aircraft based on a pre-existing NUNS fighter.

I know it's not quite the same since Lockheed was directly involved(in partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) in the manufacture of the F-2, whereas in the case of the YF-24 all that was provided as I understand it was specs of the prototype(be more like if we'd given Japan the YF-16 specs and let them do all the development work for themselves).

"You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down. Tells you she's hurting before she keens. Makes her a home."

I have a question, how is the performance of the YF-25 Prophecy compared to the VF-25 Messiah? Macross Triangle Frontier and Frontier movies had orange colored ones, while Macross 30 had Leon's customized YF-25 unit.

As usual, thanks to Kaiba for the info, I didn't know that about the YF-24 being a possible next gen main fighter cause its development history is kind of tricky from what I read and that it spawned a number of units.

Thus far, there are only two 5th Generation VFs that are not directly derived from the YF-24 Evolution spec that the New UN Government disseminated. One is the VF-31, which is a derivative of the YF-30, which was derived from the YF-24 Evolution spec. The other is the Sv-262, which has no established line of development other than the Sv-154 Svard.

Wow, that is fascinating. It also kind of makes a decent amount of sense that the later-developed YF-24-based models are locally-developed variants based on a pre-existing fighter in the Federal arsenal.
In real-world terms, as I understand it, aircraft like the VF-25, VF-31, etc...basically are equivalent to the JASDF's Mitsubishi F-2 - locally-developed aircraft based on a pre-existing NUNS fighter.

That's about right, yeah. Though in their case, it isn't a completely separate entity doing the second phase of the development. Most of the YF-24 Evolution derivatives are developed in partnership with Shinsei Industry's branch offices, just like the F-2 was developed in partnership with General Dynamics.

I have a question, how is the performance of the YF-25 Prophecy compared to the VF-25 Messiah? Macross Triangle Frontier and Frontier movies had orange colored ones, while Macross 30 had Leon's customized YF-25 unit.

The YF-25 Prophecy's capabilities and performance were virtually identical to the production version. They had a slightly lighter empty mass and additional instrumentation and communications hardware to facilitate testing but otherwise the unit was fully combat-worthy and almost a dead-on match for a Block 1 VF-25A. (Though it looks like it'd have two beam cannons on the monitor turret, it only has one. The other mount is given over to a large datalink antenna for transmitting test data in realtime.)

(You could argue that the orange, white, and blue paintjob of the "stock" YF-25 is either the Angers 672 or Chelsea Scarlett color version.)

That's about right, yeah. Though in their case, it isn't a completely separate entity doing the second phase of the development. Most of the YF-24 Evolution derivatives are developed in partnership with Shinsei Industry's branch offices, just like the F-2 was developed in partnership with General Dynamics.

Wow, I missed that detail. So the example of the F-2 is even more apt than I thought it was, since the original manufacturer was, at least to a certain extent(via the various Shinsei Industries branch offices), involved in the creation of the various local variants of the YF-24 that were developed by assorted fleets.

All this is really interesting stuff to me.
Though one question I have - and this might be a stupid one - in the case of the VF-27, I would imagine it to be the exception among YF-24 descendants in that I would expect it to have been developed via a branch office of General Galaxy rather than a Shinsei Industries branch?
Since IIRC, GG is heavily involved with the Macross Galaxy fleet.
I can't recall if this was brought up earlier in the thread, but I believe so.

"You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down. Tells you she's hurting before she keens. Makes her a home."

Earth is still an important planet in the 2050's and 2060's... it just isn't the center of the galaxy anymore.

Earth is still the de facto capital of the New Unification Government. Macross City in Alaska is pulling triple duty as the planetary capital, the solar system capital, and the Seat of the New UN Parliament. That lucky municipality is also home to the New Unified Forces Command (the supreme headquarters of the New UN Forces, which you'd recognize as the decommissioned SDF-1 Macross). It's also the wealthiest and most technologically advanced world in the New UN Government, and maintains the largest, best-equipped New UN Forces garrison as well as equipping the federal New UN Forces.

Earth is hands down the "biggest stick", it's just no longer micromanaging the rest of the galaxy because the logistical problems inherent in fold travel and fold communications made it more practical to devolve more and more authority to the individual member "states". (It's rather difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of a growing colony when it takes weeks to get a communique there and months to travel there one-way.)

That's why Ractence wanted Zauberflöte next-gen fold-com device so badly in late 2040s and early 50s, although they want to use it to switch off dissident groups at will.

Shinsei and General Galaxy's joint YF-24 development program was something initiated and bankrolled by the New UN Government and federal New UN Forces. It was suspended for a time when it turned out the all-important Inertia Store Converter technology simply wasn't mature enough to allow the program to go forward. Once stable ISC systems were available, Shinsei Industry relaunched the YF-24 program as their YF-24 "Evolution" and in 2057 they demonstrated the final prototypes to the federal New UN Forces in an ambitious simulated combat scenario at the New Edwards Test Flight Center on Eden with Major Isamu A. Dyson of the New UN Forces reserve serving as test pilot. The YF-24 Evolution demonstrator beat, in the simulated dogfight, a mixed squadron of 12 4th Generation VFs (VF-19s and VF-22s) and 6 QF-4000 Ghost UCAVs, and then demonstrated a simulated pinpoint reaction warhead attack on the bridge of a stealth carrier using a fold booster. The New UN Forces were understandably impressed, and the Shinsei's YF-24 Evolution went into mass production as the VF-24A and became the next main fighter of the Earth forces and Federal New UN Forces. (Remarks in the YF-29's writeups in Macross Chronicle and in Great Mechanics suggest the YF-29 is the only 5th Gen VF to rival the VF-24 for performance.)

Once the federal New UN Forces had settled on the VF-24 as their next main fighter, a censored version of the YF-24 specification was shared to the emigrant fleets and planets to become the basis for their locally developed new VFs or export versions of the VF-24. It was already a completed aircraft headed into mass production before development of the YF-25, YF-27, and YF-30 began.

Wait...What?
So there is really a VF-24 put into production behind the scene, not just a (unofficial) model number on the wings of an example from Model Graphix?
And I think that VF-24 demonstration can trigger the Krennic inside the carrier captain or battle group commander, as they saw YF-24 slipped through defense lines and VF squadrons or AA couldn't do anything to stop it,

If VF-24 Sol version has that terrific spec (suppressing VF-25 or even VF-27, only lost to or at least on par with YF-29 ), the fear of separatist getting new toys would be quite groundless, at least NUNS Federal Forces still counter them with VF-24.
What do they so afraid of? Nothing more than fear-mongering from Earth supremacists within NUNS?
Or the real thing striking fear to NUNS Federal Forces is YF-29, like the reason stated in Master File VF-31 and its capability to develop and manufacture it? I tried to avoid mention materials from all Master Files in last two posts, but I can't do it this time.

I don't know is it a contradiction or not.
YF-24 was described as the latest Shinsei VF rolled out in 2056/2057 (2 years before Vajra War) in F TV Version novel, the first flight of VF-25 took place at Eden or M55 on June 2057.
If NUNS Federal Force decided to buy YF-24 immediately after the demonstration, then Shinsei at Eden or Frontier had to complete the design of VF-25 and made it flyable in few months...that's gotta be very difficult for the engineers.

The federal New UN Forces have a lot on their plate, and generally don't intervene in inter-colony disputes (as Mirage mentions in the Macross Delta series).

I think it like "they can't intervene", more than "they don't intervene", especially militarily.
Brisingr Cluster is at the "tip" of Carina–Sagittarius Arm, over 70,000 light years from Earth. IIRC, Frontier took 3 days to travel across 800 light years. Even if NUNS in Sol or nearby system sent the fleet after the declaration of 2nd Windermere War in May 2067 (just after Hayate officially became a member of Delta squad when he completed the month-long training), with that speed and non-stop (and no Node mentioned in Master File), NUNS fleet might arrive at early 2068.
At that time, the war might be ended. Maybe NUNS Federal Forces could still take the credit from Colonial Forces and Xaos, if they were that shameless.

Is there any timeline for Delta? The nearest thing I found is from the Delta re-watching of Gubaba.

Safe bet is the TOMYTEC model is referring to the local defense forces the worlds of the Brisingr Alliance operate under the banner of the New UN Forces. They're very much late to the 5th Generation party, as their locally-developed Surya Aerospace VF-31 Kairos won't be ready for adoption by their New UN Forces garrisons until 2069 or 2070 (per Kawamori's interview in Great Mechanics G's Spring 2016 issue), a full decade after most of the rest of the galaxy got their 5th Gen VFs into production.

This solved the "force-wide deployment" mentioned in the manual, but how about the fear?
Why did Brisingr Alliance afraid of the imagined possibility of separatist movement from tens of thousand light years away? Kingdom of Wind was a clear and present threat for them.

Those poor buggers in the Brisingr Alliance NUNS were still flying Block II VF-171s in 2067, after even their impoverished former member Windermere IV had broomed its 4th Gen Sv-154 Svards in favor of a 5th Gen fighter from Epsilon Foundation's subsidiary Dian Cécht (the Sv-262 Draken III).

I wonder how Windermere fund their fleets? NUN applied economic sanctions on Windermere, and Windermere closed its doors.
They sold apples, mineral water and quartz in black market?

Yep... that's your VF-171 Nightmare Plus, a comparatively inexpensive mass production unit that exists in dozens of different regional variations. Supposedly it's only three times as expensive as the non-variable unmanned QF-4000, and it's a masterpiece of operational versatility that can function as everything from space dogfighter down the line to reconnaissance plane, bomber, and spyplane.

And 171EX is very good at pest control or killing bosses (in Macross 30 the game).

That said, Windermere IV's Kingdom of the Wind didn't develop its own VFs. Their economy is monstrously underdeveloped and still largely agricultural since New UN Government arms export laws prohibited them from exploiting the planet's other major resource: the metric ZOINKS-ton of fold quartz the Protoculture left sitting around on their planet. (This isn't biting just them in the arse though, it's a galaxy-wide restriction meant to prevent the proliferation of dimensional warheads.) Their VFs were purchased from the human-run defense contractors of the galaxy. They were initially buying from a specialist "brand" that was a pet project of one of General Galaxy's cofounders, the General Galaxy SV Works. The SV Works were sold off and became part of an Epsilon Foundation subsidiary named Dian Cécht and became the Dian Cécht SV Works, who developed the Sv-262 Draken III. Their warships are also purchased from Epsilon Foundation subsidiaries, and appear to be derivatives of General Galaxy designs.

Epsilon sells weapons to a hostile state under sanction blatantly, NUN seems turn a blind eye on it.
Is Epsilon one of the Anti-UN remnant factions hiding in the rim, mentioned in some magazines before Delta was on air, and NUN is unable to stop them for unknown reasons?

The VF-31 is about the last fighter you'd want to adopt if you were looking to be tops in the 5th Generation. Its performance is worse than any other 5th Generation VF to date. The Brisingr Alliance developed it as a way of stimulating their own economy, and it's correspondingly cheap because their member works cannot afford to have an expensive super-high performance VF. Even the customized VF-31s that Xaos uses as the "Siegfried" type are only BARELY better than the VF-25, and the customization is so expensive that Xaos is only able to field a few of them.

I don't think even VF-31A is that bad and barely better than VF-25.
It is the 2nd lightest known VF in YF-24 family. It has a beam gunpod as standard armament and newer ISC (ISC/T021C, the ISC on VF-25 is ISC/T021), the mini railguns can shoot targets in the front or behind. The most important of all, it got a waist joint and no "coffin" on the back.
One of my friends called MPC on YF-30 as ugly coffin.

IMO, the largest advantage of VF-31A is having the performance on par with VF-25 while using high-purity fold carbon ONLY. (From Delta novel)
ISC on VF-25 needs Fold Quartz to operate continuously for 120 seconds and reducing 50% of inertia. I am not sure about the performance of fold carbon-based IVC on YF-21/VF-22, Master FIle VF-19 and VF-22 only provided the inertia-reducing ability (15 - 20%), range (+60G to -20G) and disadvantage (1-second time lag. OK for Zentradi, not safe for human), while the operating time was unavailable.

A 5-Gen without ISC is a newer 4-Gen, so I assume "the performance on par with VF-25" included the ability to use ISC.

If T021C is a new fold carbon-based ISC to rival the quartz-based predecessors, VF-31A becomes a better choice than other VFs from YF-24 family.
More affordable and easier to build than most of them, easier to maintain than the quad-engine VF-27 and YF-29, no need to worry about the cyborg issue.

Last edited by Phonix_1 on Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All this is really interesting stuff to me.
Though one question I have - and this might be a stupid one - in the case of the VF-27, I would imagine it to be the exception among YF-24 descendants in that I would expect it to have been developed via a branch office of General Galaxy rather than a Shinsei Industries branch?
Since IIRC, GG is heavily involved with the Macross Galaxy fleet.
I can't recall if this was brought up earlier in the thread, but I believe so.

Yea, GG is the sponsor of Macross Galaxy.
I think it is fair to call it a company city of GG.

Though one question I have - and this might be a stupid one - in the case of the VF-27, I would imagine it to be the exception among YF-24 descendants in that I would expect it to have been developed via a branch office of General Galaxy rather than a Shinsei Industries branch?
Since IIRC, GG is heavily involved with the Macross Galaxy fleet.

"Heavily involved" is putting it mildly... Macross Galaxy is, in the most stringently literal sense, a huge spacegoing subsidiary of the General Galaxy corporation. It's the corporate state every cyberpunk story EVER has had, a city where the company's board of directors are the government and the citizens are all employees. Macross Galaxy's still a member state of the New UN Government though, and though its defense force is a corporate army it still operates under the banner and authority of the New UN Forces. (Which is why you can find both New UN Forces markings and Galaxy fleet markings on VF-27s.)

I don't know if Macross Galaxy has a local Shinsei Industry branch office, but they do have a business relationship with Shinsei Industry on at least some level. Several of their corporate army's fighter squadrons in 2058 used the VF-19C/MG21, a locally-built version of the VF-19C. The VF-27's development is chalked up to the fleet's General Galaxy Guld Works lab.

That's why Ractence wanted Zauberflöte next-gen fold-com device so badly in late 2040s and early 50s, although they want to use it to switch off dissident groups at will.

I think they probably found its more comprehensive application as the Sound Jamming system more interesting... since that enabled them to disable missile guidance and inflict all kinds of additional havoc.

If VF-24 Sol version has that terrific spec (suppressing VF-25 or even VF-27, only lost to or at least on par with YF-29 ), the fear of separatist getting new toys would be quite groundless, at least NUNS Federal Forces still counter them with VF-24.
What do they so afraid of? Nothing more than fear-mongering from Earth supremacists within NUNS?
Or the real thing striking fear to NUNS Federal Forces is YF-29, like the reason stated in Master File VF-31 and its capability to develop and manufacture it? I tried to avoid mention materials from all Master Files in last two posts, but I can't do it this time.

I don't know what the hell the people who wrote the TOMYTEC manual were thinking, because the only thing the New UN Government and federal New UN Forces were noted as being concerned about was the anti-government forces acquiring weapons that rivaled their own. To maintain their advantage, they're noted as having censored the YF-24 Evolution specs before they were transmitted to the various emigrant fleets and planets to ensure the Earth forces and federal New UN Forces would retain the advantage.

One could understand the Brisingr Alliance's local defense forces being worried about anti-government groups in their part of the galaxy getting their hands on 5th Generation or 5th Generation-equivalent mecha before theirs was ready though. After all, the YF-24 Evolution prototype made a mockery of 4th Generation VFs more potent than what their forces were flying, there had already been at least one documented case of an anti-government faction with a 5th Gen-equivalent VF (the Queadluun-Alma in Macross the Ride), and many of the galaxy's other New UN Government members had already started to transition to 5th Generation fighters. So if they had any kind of conflict with other colonies, or a colony rebelled and started attacking its neighbors, they would be screwed without their own 5th Generation VF. Their fears would be well-founded too, since Windermere IV was very much opposed to the New UN Government and conquered the entire Brisingr cluster with a 5th Generation fighter and fold songs.

Since it's established in official sources that the YF-29 is simply too expensive for any emigrant force to produce, they wouldn't really have any reason to be afraid of it. Macross Frontier was one of the wealthier fleets, and its government could only afford to build ONE.

YF-24 was described as the latest Shinsei VF rolled out in 2056/2057 (2 years before Vajra War) in F TV Version novel, the first flight of VF-25 took place at Eden or M55 on June 2057.
If NUNS Federal Force decided to buy YF-24 immediately after the demonstration, then Shinsei at Eden or Frontier had to complete the design of VF-25 and made it flyable in few months...that's gotta be very difficult for the engineers.

Difficult, but not impossible by any means. The YF-25 and first YF-27 prototypes were structurally very close to the YF-24 Evolution's final prototype. About the only difference in the YF-25's case was a lengthened nose, and switch from a delta wing to a variable sweep wing. (VF-1 Riders did a fun little conversion of a YF-25 back into delta wing configuration, calling it the VF-25 Messiah Legacy.)

Brisingr Cluster is at the "tip" of Carina–Sagittarius Arm, over 70,000 light years from Earth. IIRC, Frontier took 3 days to travel across 800 light years. Even if NUNS in Sol or nearby system sent the fleet after the declaration of 2nd Windermere War in May 2067 (just after Hayate officially became a member of Delta squad when he completed the month-long training), with that speed and non-stop (and no Node mentioned in Master File), NUNS fleet might arrive at early 2068.
At that time, the war might be ended. Maybe NUNS Federal Forces could still take the credit from Colonial Forces and Xaos, if they were that shameless.

Humanity has been getting steadily better at building fold systems, and better at using them too. Improvements have continued to bring down the amount of time lost to the difference in time's passage between realspace and fold space. The biggest problem in the 2050's and 2060's is fold faults, which can turn a trip that would be just a matter of seconds or minutes into several hours or days of lost time.

The early, crude efforts to build fold systems were terribly inefficient and bombastic. The fold jump from Earth orbit to Eden orbit used to take 18-24 hours of realtime, while the crew only experienced several minutes of time passing. Improvements in the technology whittled that down to about an hour of realtime.

Sheryl's trip to Gallia IV in Macross Frontier was noted to be so short that the trip would've been virtually instantaneous if not for fold faults, which caused a time differential between crew-experienced time and time passing in realspace of 7 days 4 hours and 15 minutes.

Zero-time fold systems, which can only be built using fold quartz, totally eliminate the disparity between time in fold space and realspace, effectively making them a LOT faster. I suspect by 2067 the federal forces probably did start to retrofit their ships with zero-time fold systems.

This solved the "force-wide deployment" mentioned in the manual, but how about the fear?
Why did Brisingr Alliance afraid of the imagined possibility of separatist movement from tens of thousand light years away? Kingdom of Wind was a clear and present threat for them.

Anti-government movements exist all over the galaxy, though their threat varies from region to region. Kaname's home planet of Divide is in a semi-permanent state of civil war over it, for instance. Mirage is noted to have had some involvement in ousting an anti-government terrorist force that took over an emigrant ship while she was an active duty service member in the New UN Forces.

The Kingdom of the Wind probably counts as a local anti-government threat though, since they had already had a war with the New UN Forces and withdrawn from their treaties.

I wonder how Windermere fund their fleets? NUN applied economic sanctions on Windermere, and Windermere closed its doors.
They sold apples, mineral water and quartz in black market?

The exports of food are their legitimate commercial exports.

It seems a safe bet that Windermere IV's Kingdom of the Wind was financing its military buildup by black market trade in fold quartz, which is extremely valuable AND a commodity the New UN Government strictly controls the trading of. The opportunity to study intact examples of Protoculture overtechnology may have also served as an additional form of compensation for the Epsilon Foundation.

Epsilon sells weapons to a hostile state under sanction blatantly, NUN seems turn a blind eye on it.
Is Epsilon one of the Anti-UN remnant factions hiding in the rim, mentioned in some magazines before Delta was on air, and NUN is unable to stop them for unknown reasons?

's kind of a "truth in television" moment there. There are plenty of real-world corporations involved in things that are shady, downright illegal, or potentially even war crimes, and they tend to get away with a slap on the wrist in most cases because they have a LOT of money. Like how recently the Chinese government caught several of their country's corporations engaged in illegal technology sales to North Korea, some of which were ending up being put to use in nuclear weapons development. Or how Volkswagon got busted using special software to detect and then cheat on emissions testing so they could sell cars that put out illegal levels of pollutants.

Epsilon Foundation is a legitimate business conglomerate that exists out in the Brisingr globular cluster, and their subsidiary corporations make all kinds of things. They even have legitimate defense industry businesses... they're just selling to Windermere IV under the table because Berger Stone saw a chance to make a big profit by selling to both sides in a war (and is implied to have been friends with the now-deceased King Grammier). They're basically like Anaheim Electronics is in many Gundam stories... an amoral corporation selling to both sides for great profit.

The "SV Works" that produced the Sv-154 Svard and Sv-262 Draken III has a shadier past. It started out as a design team working for the Anti-Unification Alliance in the UN Wars, and was responsible for developing the Sv-51 using the development data D.D. Ivanov stole from the VF-0 program. After the Alliance folded, they revealed they did not have any real investment in the cause, handed over the development data from the Sv-51, and switched sides to work for the UN Government. They ended up attached to Stonewell and Bellcom's VF-4 program, and escaped death in the First Space War by sheer dumb luck of being out at Apollo Base to carry out space testing on VF-X-4 prototypes. They then became one of the founding parties behind General Galaxy, and their leader, who thought VF vs VF combat was the future, started a special design team, the SV Works, to develop VFs that would exist for anti-VF combat. General Galaxy later sold the SV Works to the Epsilon Foundation subsidary Dian Cecht Corp.

I don't think even VF-31A is that bad and barely better than VF-25.
It is the 2nd lightest known VF in YF-24 family. It has a beam gunpod as standard armament and newer ISC (ISC/T021C, the ISC on VF-25 is ISC/T021), the mini railguns can shoot targets in the front or behind. The most important of all, it got a waist joint and no "coffin" on the back.
One of my friends called MPC on YF-30 as ugly coffin.

So, a few points here.

The VF-31A does actually come up with inferior performance numbers compared to the VF-25. The reason that it has such a light empty mass is the mass given does not include the ordnance container. Its T/W ratio comes out to just slightly higher than the VF-25's if you leave the ordnance container out, but if you work from combat loadings the VF-25 outclasses the VF-31A, and even the VF-31 Siegfried custom only barely outclasses the VF-25.

The newer ISC is only a fractional improvement over the VF-25's, which isn't really necessary since the VF-31A has less acceleration than the VF-25.

IMO, the largest advantage of VF-31 is having the performance on par with VF-25 while using high-purity fold carbon ONLY. (From Delta novel)
ISC on VF-25 needs Fold Quartz to operate continuously for 120 seconds and reducing 50% of inertia. I am not sure about the performance of fold carbon-based IVC on YF-21/VF-22, Master FIle VF-19 and VF-22 only provided the inertia-reducing ability (15 - 20%), range (+60G to -20G) and disadvantage (1-second time lag. OK for Zentradi, not safe for human), while the operating time was unavailable.

You're misunderstanding that statement about using fold carbon.

The VF-31A's Shinsei/LAI T-O21C Inertia Store Converter still uses fold quartz. Fold quartz is a prerequisite of the ISC system, you can't build a working one without it... that much is explicitly stated. High-purity fold carbon will only let you build the much less capable Inertia Vector Control System used on the Queadluun-Rau and VF-22.

What they're talking about when they say the VF-31A is not using fold quartz is that: 1. it doesn't have a fold wave system and 2. the fold wave amplifiers that Xaos installed on all of their VF-31A's (the crystals behind the cockpit) use synthetic fold carbon as a cheaper alternative to fold quartz. That way Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Flights can still provide some kind of limited support to Delta Flight and Walkure in the field by amplifying their fold songs... but not to the same extent that Delta Flight's fold quartz-based amps can.

Edit: It occurs to me that I should make a point of the fact that while the Macross Delta spec for the VF-31A lists "fold carbon" under "special equipment", that only refers to the nonstandard applications like its fold wave amplifier. Fold carbon is essential for most, if not all, overtechnologies that exploit super dimension spatial physics including the Compact Thermonuclear Reactor inside each thermonuclear reaction turbine engine, and its heavy quantum beam gunpod.

"Heavily involved" is putting it mildly... Macross Galaxy is, in the most stringently literal sense, a huge spacegoing subsidiary of the General Galaxy corporation. It's the corporate state every cyberpunk story EVER has had, a city where the company's board of directors are the government and the citizens are all employees. Macross Galaxy's still a member state of the New UN Government though, and though its defense force is a corporate army it still operates under the banner and authority of the New UN Forces. (Which is why you can find both New UN Forces markings and Galaxy fleet markings on VF-27s.)

I don't know if Macross Galaxy has a local Shinsei Industry branch office, but they do have a business relationship with Shinsei Industry on at least some level. Several of their corporate army's fighter squadrons in 2058 used the VF-19C/MG21, a locally-built version of the VF-19C. The VF-27's development is chalked up to the fleet's General Galaxy Guld Works lab.

If taking Master File VF-25 in account, GG and Shinsei has already worked closely in 2040s, when Evolution Project began.

I don't know what the hell the people who wrote the TOMYTEC manual were thinking, because the only thing the New UN Government and federal New UN Forces were noted as being concerned about was the anti-government forces acquiring weapons that rivaled their own.

The background in TOMYTEC manual was written by Sarge Yamazaki, while Chiba (Kawamori's friend) was responsible for the spec.https://twitter.com/sgyamazaki
And the Sarge Yamazaki guy is the supervisor of Great Mechanics G...

I begin to worry about the credibility of Great Mechanics G, if he is still working at there.

To maintain their advantage, they're noted as having censored the YF-24 Evolution specs before they were transmitted to the various emigrant fleets and planets to ensure the Earth forces and federal New UN Forces would retain the advantage.

Fortunately for both sides, the monkey models are still very good at pest control.

One could understand the Brisingr Alliance's local defense forces being worried about anti-government groups in their part of the galaxy getting their hands on 5th Generation or 5th Generation-equivalent mecha before theirs was ready though. After all, the YF-24 Evolution prototype made a mockery of 4th Generation VFs more potent than what their forces were flying, there had already been at least one documented case of an anti-government faction with a 5th Gen-equivalent VF (the Queadluun-Alma in Macross the Ride), and many of the galaxy's other New UN Government members had already started to transition to 5th Generation fighters. So if they had any kind of conflict with other colonies, or a colony rebelled and started attacking its neighbors, they would be screwed without their own 5th Generation VF. Their fears would be well-founded too, since Windermere IV was very much opposed to the New UN Government and conquered the entire Brisingr cluster with a 5th Generation fighter and fold songs.

Ear-raping fold songs (and chemical warfare in form of Windermere apples and mineral water) deserve the biggest share of credit, I can't imagine how Windermere captured so many planets by their small fleets and army ONLY.

Alma in The Ride is so over the top, I don't think even the much-hyped YF-29 can defeat it.
Did Kodachi get drunk when he was writing The Ride? He gave it an potentially invulnerable Astral Field, running on some arcane principles...

Since it's established in official sources that the YF-29 is simply too expensive for any emigrant force to produce, they wouldn't really have any reason to be afraid of it. Macross Frontier was one of the wealthier fleets, and its government could only afford to build ONE.

Alto's YF-29 was a hastily manufactured bug killer.
The greatest obstacle (and probably the most expensive part) in the development was the lack of Ultra High-Purity Fold Quartz (the FC.6 or higher described in Master File?), and Frontier finally got at least 4 pieces of thousand-carat Ultra High-Purity class to complete YF-29.
After the war, Vajra left the planet. There were few reasons to build more YF-29 other than conducting further experiments, so we just got one (known and shown on screen), Alto's YF-29. I believe that it was possible for Frontier to build more YF-29 if they got enough FC.6/6+ in stock and reasons.

Zero-time fold systems, which can only be built using fold quartz, totally eliminate the disparity between time in fold space and realspace, effectively making them a LOT faster. I suspect by 2067 the federal forces probably did start to retrofit their ships with zero-time fold systems.

If Feddies could at least refit their ships in Cluster Expedition Fleet, they had to secure a reliable source of quartz.

's kind of a "truth in television" moment there. There are plenty of real-world corporations involved in things that are shady, downright illegal, or potentially even war crimes, and they tend to get away with a slap on the wrist in most cases because they have a LOT of money. Like how recently the Chinese government caught several of their country's corporations engaged in illegal technology sales to North Korea, some of which were ending up being put to use in nuclear weapons development. Or how Volkswagon got busted using special software to detect and then cheat on emissions testing so they could sell cars that put out illegal levels of pollutants.

Epsilon Foundation is a legitimate business conglomerate that exists out in the Brisingr globular cluster, and their subsidiary corporations make all kinds of things. They even have legitimate defense industry businesses... they're just selling to Windermere IV under the table because Berger Stone saw a chance to make a big profit by selling to both sides in a war (and is implied to have been friends with the now-deceased King Grammier). They're basically like Anaheim Electronics is in many Gundam stories... an amoral corporation selling to both sides for great profit.

Volkswagen had to pay billions for penalty and settlement, executives resigned and got charged.
Would Epsilon share the same fate? Could Berger got away from the charges because he provided intel to Xaos? I doubt, if there are sequels describing the aftermath.
Revoking the arms dealing permit and/or Berger lost his job may be the best NUN can get.

AE is another thing, they are so interwined with Federal Government and wielding the power that may dwarf Epsilon and GG. Not even Epsilon or GG can use the latest and biggest NUNS WARSHIP or SUPERWEAPON as they want, threatening some very high-ranking NUN officials (on screen at least), Martha Vist Carbine can...
Comparing to that, AE keeps selling weapons to terrorists and not get charged is so easy.

The "SV Works" that produced the Sv-154 Svard and Sv-262 Draken III has a shadier past. It started out as a design team working for the Anti-Unification Alliance in the UN Wars, and was responsible for developing the Sv-51 using the development data D.D. Ivanov stole from the VF-0 program. After the Alliance folded, they revealed they did not have any real investment in the cause, handed over the development data from the Sv-51, and switched sides to work for the UN Government. They ended up attached to Stonewell and Bellcom's VF-4 program, and escaped death in the First Space War by sheer dumb luck of being out at Apollo Base to carry out space testing on VF-X-4 prototypes. They then became one of the founding parties behind General Galaxy, and their leader, who thought VF vs VF combat was the future, started a special design team, the SV Works, to develop VFs that would exist for anti-VF combat. General Galaxy later sold the SV Works to the Epsilon Foundation subsidary Dian Cecht Corp.

SV Works is not that shady, comparing to Epsilon, though Alexei Kurakin, founder of GG SV Works has a habit of switching allegiance.

The VF-31A does actually come up with inferior performance numbers compared to the VF-25. The reason that it has such a light empty mass is the mass given does not include the ordnance container. Its T/W ratio comes out to just slightly higher than the VF-25's if you leave the ordnance container out, but if you work from combat loadings the VF-25 outclasses the VF-31A, and even the VF-31 Siegfried custom only barely outclasses the VF-25.

The newer ISC is only a fractional improvement over the VF-25's, which isn't really necessary since the VF-31A has less acceleration than the VF-25.

Does the empty mass of VF-25 include the gunpod?

Talking about the FAST Packs, I can't figure it out why VF-31 use a lower-output booster than that on VF-25 Packs.
VF-31 Packs burns longer than VF-25 ones, but for 5 seconds only (125 vs 120)...
Made in China still sucks even in Interstellar Age?

I know they pack more firepower in form of firing a larger barrage than VF-25 ones, however it's still odd.

The VF-31A's Shinsei/LAI T-O21C Inertia Store Converter still uses fold quartz. Fold quartz is a prerequisite of the ISC system, you can't build a working one without it... that much is explicitly stated. High-purity fold carbon will only let you build the much less capable Inertia Vector Control System used on the Queadluun-Rau and VF-22.

Many users on various Japanese BBS interpret "VF-31A usage of High-purity fold carbon" as "using it in ISC".
Pixiv entry explicitly stated that "As fold carbon, which is less pure than fold quartz, is not used, Fold Wave System is not installed on VF-31A, the inertia capacity of ISC is small".
I read the similar thing in many places, but I can't locate the source they are referencing.
Does anybody know it?

What they're talking about when they say the VF-31A is not using fold quartz is that: 1. it doesn't have a fold wave system and 2. the fold wave amplifiers that Xaos installed on all of their VF-31A's (the crystals behind the cockpit) use synthetic fold carbon as a cheaper alternative to fold quartz. That way Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Flights can still provide some kind of limited support to Delta Flight and Walkure in the field by amplifying their fold songs... but not to the same extent that Delta Flight's fold quartz-based amps can.

I am so surprised and confused now, for there are so many things about YF-24 family I never heard before and different from what I know for almost a decade.

I confess I'm surprised you're surprised. Most of what I've said has been covered in many different official publications including Macross Chronicle, Blu-ray liner notes, and even interviews and articles in a wide array of magazines and other periodicals.

If taking Master File VF-25 in account, GG and Shinsei has already worked closely in 2040s, when Evolution Project began.

That much is official, that Shinsei and General Galaxy had collaborated on the development of the initial YF-24 prototype, the development of which was suspended due to unresolvable technical problems with their early version of inertia store converter technology.

The background in TOMYTEC manual was written by Sarge Yamazaki, while Chiba (Kawamori's friend) was responsible for the spec.https://twitter.com/sgyamazaki
And the Sarge Yamazaki guy is the supervisor of Great Mechanics G...

I begin to worry about the credibility of Great Mechanics G, if he is still working at there.

As a general guideline, toy and model kit booklets usually aren't regarded as authoritative sources... but I haven't done a full translation of the TOMYTEC manuals, so I cannot say from firsthand experience exactly how inaccurate they are. (A task for later, I suppose, once I've finished the translation of the background paragraphs from the YF-19-3 toy manual.)

I wouldn't worry overmuch about Great Mechanics G. I've been following its Macross coverage and so far I haven't found anything overtly wrong.

Ear-raping fold songs (and chemical warfare in form of Windermere apples and mineral water) deserve the biggest share of credit, I can't imagine how Windermere captured so many planets by their small fleets and army ONLY.

As you say, their bio-chemical warfare and fold song-based mind control were the biggest advantages they had, but they were still operating with equipment that was more advanced than what the Brisingr Alliance NUNS was using. The weaponization of Var syndrome simply turned the NUNS's advantage in numbers on its ear.

Alma in The Ride is so over the top, I don't think even the much-hyped YF-29 can defeat it.
Did Kodachi get drunk when he was writing The Ride? He gave it an potentially invulnerable Astral Field, running on some arcane principles...

I'm not sure I would call the principles behind the Astral System arcane, since they're relatively well-known functions incorporated into several different Protoculture bio-technological constructs.

The New UN Forces have, as a consolation, the system's flawed design and impossibly scarce fundamental resource requirements. It's not like there are dead Protodeviln just lying around all willy-nilly.

The YF-25 was able to defeat it, so I'd assume a YF-29 wouldn't have much difficulty. Still, rather a large wake-up call to the military just like the last three times this happened. Every time the anti-government forces get their hands on a current-gen fighter, they redevelop it into a next-gen equivalent fighter. (The Sv-51, Variable Glaug, and Feios Valkyrie all started as stolen fighters or data.)

Alto's YF-29 was a hastily manufactured bug killer.
The greatest obstacle (and probably the most expensive part) in the development was the lack of Ultra High-Purity Fold Quartz (the FC.6 or higher described in Master File?), and Frontier finally got at least 4 pieces of thousand-carat Ultra High-Purity class to complete YF-29.
After the war, Vajra left the planet. There were few reasons to build more YF-29 other than conducting further experiments, so we just got one (known and shown on screen), Alto's YF-29. I believe that it was possible for Frontier to build more YF-29 if they got enough FC.6/6+ in stock and reasons.

Hastily manufactured it was, but it was also bank-breakingly expensive. The amount and purity of the fold quartz necessary to make its fold wave system and ISC make mass-production cost and risk-prohibitive, due to the fact that only Vajra Queens produce fold quartz of sufficient purity and size. To attack a queen isn't exactly a good idea if you intend to stay alive, so their access to the requisite grade of fold quartz is limited.

Volkswagen had to pay billions for penalty and settlement, executives resigned and got charged.
Would Epsilon share the same fate? Could Berger got away from the charges because he provided intel to Xaos? I doubt, if there are sequels describing the aftermath.
Revoking the arms dealing permit and/or Berger lost his job may be the best NUN can get.

Quite possibly. Since he switched sides and started providing intelligence and support to Xaos and the New UN Spacy he'll probably avoid being tried for treason, and could always claim he was threatened into doing what he did since everyone who could disprove it is too dead to testify against him.

He might lose his job, and Epsilon will definitely lose business. Xaos was going to sacrifice years out of its operating budget just to divest itself of the hardware it'd acquired from Epsilon-owned companies. I'd say they're probably finished doing business in the Brisingr cluster after a debacle like that.

AE is another thing, they are so interwined with Federal Government and wielding the power that may dwarf Epsilon and GG. Not even Epsilon or GG can use the latest and biggest NUNS WARSHIP or SUPERWEAPON as they want, threatening some very high-ranking NUN officials (on screen at least), Martha Vist Carbine can...
Comparing to that, AE keeps selling weapons to terrorists and not get charged is so easy.

Dunno 'bout that... General Galaxy got the New UN Gov't to sign off on one of their branch offices being an autonomous state exempt from a bunch of laws so it could function as a giant experimental laboratory, and managed to get away with arming it with the latest, most sophisticated weapons money could buy. That's some serious clout right there.

SV Works is not that shady, comparing to Epsilon, though Alexei Kurakin, founder of GG SV Works has a habit of switching allegiance.

I dunno, I'd call their Unification Wars-era activities pretty shady... and who knows what the heck they've been up to in the time between becoming part of General Galaxy and being sold off to Dian Cecht. There were explicit references to General Galaxy (and Macross Galaxy) black ops.

Talking about the FAST Packs, I can't figure it out why VF-31 use a lower-output booster than that on VF-25 Packs.
VF-31 Packs burns longer than VF-25 ones, but for 5 seconds only (125 vs 120)...
Made in China still sucks even in Interstellar Age?

That struck me as odd as well... the VF-31's SPS-31 Super Pack is nowhere near as bulky as the SPS-25 pack used by the VF-25, but it's five tons heavier despite having comparable endurance and less actual maximum thrust.

I guess it's more like Made in India, or at least made by an Indian-owned corporation... the maker of those booster elements is Bhārat, which is the sanskrit name for the nation of India.

(I do like that the front of each booster has a high-powered rocket motor specifically for deceleration... finally someone remembers Newtonian physics.)

EDIT: SMS Macross Quarter bridge operator Mina Roshan is Indian and it's said in her bio that her family are owners of a major corporation... is she a Brisingr native, I wonder?

I know they pack more firepower in form of firing a larger barrage than VF-25 ones, however it's still odd.

Twelve micro-missile launchers to the VF-25's six is a hell of an upgrade in terms of the number of missiles they can fire, but the packs being so much smaller makes me suspect that it has fewer missiles total.

Many users on various Japanese BBS interpret "VF-31A usage of High-purity fold carbon" as "using it in ISC".
Pixiv entry explicitly stated that "As fold carbon, which is less pure than fold quartz, is not used, Fold Wave System is not installed on VF-31A, the inertia capacity of ISC is small".
I read the similar thing in many places, but I can't locate the source they are referencing.
Does anybody know it?

Not a clue where they could be getting that. Every source I have that discusses the ISC, from Macross Chronicle to Great Mechanics, is very VERY clear on the fact that fold quartz is the core of the ISC and that you literally cannot make one without high-purity fold quartz like that found in the bodies of the larger Vajra forms.

The Pixiv entry you quoted has an obvious glaring error. The ISC capacity for the VF-31A is not small, it's identified as being able to buffer more G's than the Block 1 VF-25's or VF-27's ISC. (Not by a lot, but more still is more.)

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting the listing of "fold carbon" as Special Equipment in the VF-31A's specs to mean something totally different from what is actually written.

Dunno 'bout that... General Galaxy got the New UN Gov't to sign off on one of their branch offices being an autonomous state exempt from a bunch of laws so it could function as a giant experimental laboratory, and managed to get away with arming it with the latest, most sophisticated weapons money could buy. That's some serious clout right there.

F TV Version novel touched this serious clout a little bit, really little.
When Quarter crew continued the investigation near Gallia 4 after defeating Manfred Brand and his brainwashed lackeys, one of bridge girls suspected that there might be something bigger lurking behind the scene.

But no one has elaborated this for a decade, I think that can be a great story.

That struck me as odd as well... the VF-31's SPS-31 Super Pack is nowhere near as bulky as the SPS-25 pack used by the VF-25, but it's five tons heavier despite having comparable endurance and less actual maximum thrust.

I guess it's more like Made in India, or at least made by an Indian-owned corporation... the maker of those booster elements is Bhārat, which is the sanskrit name for the nation of India.

According to Bandai model maunals and Master File VF-31, the engines and vernier thrusters on the pack are products of Feifeng Aerospace Industries, sounds like a Chinese one.

Not a clue where they could be getting that. Every source I have that discusses the ISC, from Macross Chronicle to Great Mechanics, is very VERY clear on the fact that fold quartz is the core of the ISC and that you literally cannot make one without high-purity fold quartz like that found in the bodies of the larger Vajra forms.

Two decades is enough for companies from building a single-use VF-size Fold Engine to multiple-use one.
Maybe LAI and Shinsei can find some ways to use fold carbon in ISC, while maintaining capability similar to VF-25 quartz-based ones.

While not strictly applicable to Macross's animated official continuity, one of the great things about the novels is that they do a LOT more to connect the various Macross stories than the shows do. It's been a while since I read those, but IIRC they connected Manfred Brando's implants his Ghost in the Shell-style escape from death to Macross Galaxy.

Macross Frontier's TV series had some audio dramas that are directly tied into its plot that offered a little detail on the Macross Galaxy fleet, though it was mostly related to Grace O'Connor and her effort to replace Sheryl Nome with Ranka Lee in the fleet's plans.

According to Bandai model maunals and Master File VF-31, the engines and vernier thrusters on the pack are products of Feifeng Aerospace Industries, sounds like a Chinese one.

Hm... if you don't mind my asking, what language are the translations you're reading translating Japanese into? There may be a transliteration rule difference in play here. (Also, we want to be precise and make the distinction between the manufacturer of the pack and the equipment inside the pack.)

The specs I've seen for the SPS-31 Super Pack identify the manufacturer of the Super Pack system as being Hiotori Aerospace, a name which can be read as Feifeng Aerospace if you're reading it in Chinese. Various systems that were integrated into the pack were supplied by other companies: Bharat provided the rocket boosters and high-thrust verniers, while Bifors provided the missile launchers.

(This really has me wondering what the correct translation of the company name is, though. I'll see if I can find it written in kana or English somewhere.)

Seems rather wasteful of the already-limited reactant slush for the main engines. I think the SPS-31's way seems a lot more sensible, using a booster rocket specifically positioned for deceleration so there isn't any need to transform to rapidly decelerate, and the turning radius could potentially drop as low as zero when they're operated at full power.

Two decades is enough for companies from building a single-use VF-size Fold Engine to multiple-use one.
Maybe LAI and Shinsei can find some ways to use fold carbon in ISC, while maintaining capability similar to VF-25 quartz-based ones.

Yeah, but the limitation on fold booster use was a durability factor, not really a materials-limitation one. There's been nothing, thus far, that suggests that the feats achievable via fold quartz can be duplicated using synthetic alternatives.

Every source to date has said that high-purity fold quartz is the core of the ISC, and that it's categorically impossible to build one without it. Given that the VF-31 is described as using a variant of the same ISC in the VF-25 with only minimal performance difference, I would expect that the technology inside it stayed almost exactly the same. Developing an ISC that didn't need fold quartz would be a colossal coup for the developer and eradicate most of the value of fold quartz, which wouldn't fit with the Macross Delta backstory's intense focus on how valuable and restricted the stuff is... and it'd certainly have been talked about in the official spec in the liner notes, which it isn't.

That got my attention for rather a different reason... "FOLD WAVE SYSTEM CORE"?

Putting that aside momentarily, the description sounds like exactly what I'd expect. Fold wave projectors, like what the crystals in the same position on the YF-29 are identified as. (A system put on the YF-29 as a way of amplifying and directing fold song.)

The "fold wave system core" thing is a bit out of left field for the Siegfried. The official spec for the YF-29 Durandal identified those fold quartz insets behind the cockpit only as fold wave projectors, the four 1,000 carat pieces of fold quartz were explicitly identified as being elsewhere in the aircraft. They were located under the inset panels on the leading edge of the wing root and on the outside of the wingtip engine intake.

If the Siegfried's fold wave projectors are pulling double duty as the fold quartz core of the fighter's fold wave system, that would suggest the Siegfried uses good deal less fold quartz than even I suspected, and that would explain how Xaos can afford to field five of them when Macross Frontier could only afford the one YF-29... they're using one third as much fold quartz.